Doctor Who is both a television show and a multimedia franchise created and controlled by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

It centres on a time travelling, humanoid alien called "the Doctor", who comes from a race of beings known as Time Lords. He travels through space and time in a time machine he calls the TARDIS. This ship — which looks like a small, London police box on the outside — has nearly infinite dimensions on the inside. It has become such an iconic shape in British culture that it is currently the intellectual property of the BBC rather than its actual makers, the Metropolitan Police Service.

In order to accommodate cast changes, the narrative allows the Doctor to regenerate into an essentially new person on occasion. The cast is rounded out by one or more "companions", often females. On average, the main cast completely changes once every three or four years — a significant factor in the longevity of the programme.

It has had two — some argue three — major production periods. The original run of the programme was from 1963 to 1989, and is often called the "classic series" or "classic Doctor Who". A failed revival, in the form of a Universal-BBC co-production, came in 1996 — but the resulting one-off tele movie is often considered a part of the classic series. The current form of the programme — sometimes called the "new series" — has been produced by BBC Wales and aired on BBC One since 2005. It is currently the more popular iteration.

Though the classic series is fondly remembered by fans of a certain age, the new series has been far more consistently popular with the British public, and is usually the highest-rated scripted drama — outside of perennially popular soap operas — in the weeks that it is on the air.

The franchise spawned by the main television programmes includes dozens of distinct ranges of spinoffs in televised, audio and print media.

This topic has been created basically as a place to dump neat pieces of Doctor Who information and history, etc. For those who are interested in such things

With very Amateurish camera work, and low VHS quality video and sound, this is The Ultimate Adventure.

The Ultimate Adventure was a silly Doctor Who musical stage play from 1989 written by long time writer, and creator of massive chunks of Doctor Who's lore, Terrance Dicks. Originally it stared Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, but he fell ill for a couple of performances and his understudy David Banks (best known for playing all of the 80's Cybermen stories' Cyberleader) briefly took over as a really strange, very 80s version of the Doctor. After this, Sixth Doctor Colin Baker took over the role for the rest of the play's run, thankfully having a heavily redesigned costume that's actually pleasing to look at and doesn't burn holes in your eyes.

The play was later adapted as a Big Finish Audio Drama in 2008 (which can be found here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-ultimate-adventure-549), but this interesting piece of Doctor Who history was recorded on tape near the end of it's run so we are still able to see what it was like in it's original form, with Colin Baker doing a wonderful job as the Doctor on stage.

The Daleks and the Cybermen form an alliance to kidnap the American Envoy and ruin a peace conference on Earth. The Doctor meets a new companion, a Frenchman called Jason. After they fail to stop the Cybermen taking the US Envoy from a nightclub, they are joined by a singer named Crystal who works there. After a trip to Altair Three and then the Bar Galactica, they meet Madame Delilah but are forced to flee along with a small furry creature called Zog.

The travellers are captured briefly by the Daleks. They navigate the ship through an asteroid field before making a series of short trips, then confront the Dalek Emperor. The Doctor tricks the Emperor into revealing that the Daleks intend to betray the Cybermen and a battle breaks out between the two. Returning to Earth, the Doctor realises the US Envoy is under Dalek influence and programmed to destroy London with a Dalekanium bomb. The Doctor breaks his conditioning and defuses the bomb by putting it in a teapot.

Quite liked Nightmare in Silver, and Crimson Horror as well, apart from the awkwardly crowbarred in ending with the kids [which was terrible]. The introduction of the kids here was also awkward, and unmotivated, and so on. Cyberman episodes tend to be second-rate, the most recent coasting on Smith's chemistry with James Corden. This one lacked style, feeling a bit goofy and light visually, but Matt Smith had fun playing an evil Doctor and the Cybermen were a more credible threat than usual.

Matt's performance as the bad guy is one of those rare times when you're glad a Doctor isn't "Troughtonesque."

The BBC have announced EVERYWHERE that the Blu-Ray of Doctor Who Series 7, including the finale, has leaked early, and that fans should keep quiet about it and not spoil anyone. And yet so far, there's been no leak on the internet. The Radio Times just gave a rave review, so at least one review copy exists. Although review copies of Doctor Who episodes have been edited to remove spoilers in the past, as with Partners in Crime. I believe the BBC have faked a leak story to try to dissuade an actual leak from occurring via the review copies or elsewhere - including review copies of the Blu-Ray set itself. There was a rumor about a BBC employee leaking something. Presumably he was dealt with if so. I don't know; I think this is damage control to publicize how a leak could possibly occur and try to prevent it.

From what I've seen of it, it started as a small group of people trolling the fandom with screenshots of the Blu-ray and it's discs, and pictures of their TVs with The Name of the Doctor title card on it. There was then an uproarious mixture of people wanting spoilers, but most of the fandom trying to fight against spoilers. BBC's twitter and facebook then got involved, and I feel that they spun it into a publicity stunt, saying that if people don't spoil the episode then they'll air a special short bit with Smith and Tennant after the episode airs. There are quite a few people with review copies, but they do indeed have the endings edited off, and nothing has been leaked at all. The only thing out there is trolls trying to get people to download viruses and open screamer links.